Medicinal drugs are given to people to manage or improve their health for a variety of reasons, such as to prevent or treat a medical condition or disease such as diabetes, Parkinson's disease, ulcerative colitis, or to manage nicotine or another addiction or dependency, or to manage pain.
Some medicinal drugs are rapidly metabolized by the body; multiple doses of the drug over a period of time are therefore often needed to provide a desired effect. In addition to having desired preventative or therapeutic effects, medicinal drugs can also have negative side-effects on the body that can range from irritating to life-threatening. A person's body can also develop tolerance to a drug and experience a diminished response to the drug after taking it for a period of time and require higher doses to have an effect, resulting in increased drug use and additional side-effects. Despite their negative side-effects, a person takes a medicinal drug because, on the whole, the drug causes more good than harm. It is beneficial to a person taking a drug to minimize the amount of drug they take to prevent or minimize tolerance and other unwanted side-effects while still receiving the desired therapeutic effect from the drug.
Tobacco use (such as smoking) causes serious health problems and can lead to premature death. According to the United States Center for Disease Control (CDC), tobacco use causes more than 5 million deaths per year as well as contributing to the development of serious illnesses such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease (bronchitis, chronic airway destruction, emphysema), and stroke. Despite anti-smoking advertising campaigns, legislation, taxation, and development of smoking cessation products to stop or prevent people from using tobacco, tobacco sales remains a multibillion dollar industry, generating an estimated $35 billion dollars per year in profits. Tobacco initially causes physical and mood-altering effects that are temporarily pleasing. It is difficult for a person to stop using a tobacco product, because tobacco contains nicotine. Nicotine is highly addictive, and not having the nicotine causes harsh withdrawal symptoms. It is very difficult for a person to overcome a nicotine addiction and stop smoking.
Medicinal drugs can be taken by tobacco users to help them to overcome their nicotine addiction and stop using tobacco. Some products to help a person stop smoking contain small amounts of nicotine as a medicinal drug to minimize withdrawal symptoms and gradually wean a person from their nicotine addiction. Medicinal smoking cessation drugs such as nicotine have to be taken over an extended period of time (often over the course of many months) to give the body time to adjust to having less nicotine. Medicinal drugs, medical devices and other products, including smoking cessation products, are regulated in the United States by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). FDA approved products on the market to help a person quit smoking include various medicinal drugs that require a doctor's prescription as well as over-the-counter products. These products include capsules or tablets, gums, inhalers, lozenges, nasal sprays, and skin patches. These products have thus far been inadequate to get people to stop smoking: 68.9% of adult cigarette smokers say they want to stop smoking, and every year some 42.7% make an attempt to stop smoking, but are unsuccessful.
These existing smoking cessation products and other therapeutic and prophylactic treatments for health issues suffer from a variety of problems. They may be inconvenient or socially awkward to use. They may require careful and troublesome tracking of when they were used and how much was used to prevent overdosing. They may act too slowly after being administered and not produce a desired effect when it's needed. They may not be readily available when they are needed (such as while a person is sleeping). None have been wholly effective to for preventing or treating various medical or other conditions. Smoking, for example, remains a significant health and social problem.
What are needed are new and improved systems, devices and methods for delivering drugs and other bioactive agents, such as smoking cessation agents, to a person. Provided herein are systems, devices and methods for delivering a drug or other bioactive agent to an individual. These may be useful for treating or preventing a medical condition, disease, addiction, dependency or for managing pain and may be especially useful for helping a tobacco user to stop using tobacco. New and improved systems with increased safety and improved efficiency for delivering the drugs and other bioactive agents are also desired and disclosed herein.